Archiwum
- Index
- Gregory Philippa Powieści Tudorowskie 06 Uwięziona królowa
- Zwiadowcy 06 Oblężenie Macindaw Flanagan John
- Asimov, Isaac Robot 06 Robots & Empire
- 06 Nagie kosci
- Lois McMaster Bujold Omnibus 4 Miles Mystery and Mayhem
- Lois McMaster Bujold 10 Mirror Dance
- Lois McMaster Bujold 15.5 Winterfair Gifts
- barbara radziwilowna felinski a.
- Baum, L Frank Oz 38 The Shaggy Man of Oz
- Williams Bronwyn śźona dla marynarza
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- lafemka.pev.pl
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jacket hung ready-to-hand. Her eyes slitted open to follow him as he staggered
to the bathroom.
He found on the second day that Commander Quinn did not lock him in during the
long hours of her absences. He dithered in the hallway for twenty minutes,
upon discovering this, trying to evolve some rational program for his freedom
besides being immediately gobbled up by Millisor, who was by now doubtless
tearing the Station apart looking for him. The whirr of a cleaning robot
rounding the corner sent him spinning back into the room, heart palpitating.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to let the mercenary woman protect him a little longer.
By the third day he had recovered enough of his native tone of mind to begin
serious worrying about his predicament, although not yet enough physical
energy to try doing anything about it. Belatedly, he began boning up on
galactic history through the comconsole library.
By the end of the next day he was becoming painfully aware of the inadequacy
of a cultural education that consisted of two very general galactic histories,
a history of Cetaganda, and a fiction holovid titled "Love's Savage Star" that
he had stumbled onto and been too stunned to switch off. Life with women did
not just induce strange behavior, it appeared; it induced very strange
behavior. How long before the emanations or whatever it was from Commander
Quinn would make him start acting like that?
Would ripping open her jacket to expose her mammary hypertrophy really cause
her to fixate upon him like a newly hatched chick on its mother hen? Or would
she carve him to ribbons with her vibra-knife before the hormones or whatever
they were cut in?
He shuddered, and cursed the study time he'd wasted on timidity during the two
months voyage to Kline Station. Innocence might be bliss, but ignorance was
demonstrably hell; if his soul was to be offered up on the altar of necessity,
by God the Father
Athos should have the full worth of it. He read on.
The opposite of nirvana in his spiritual descent, Ethan decided, was tizzy;
and by the sixth day he had achieved it.
"What the hell is Millisor doing out there?" he demanded of Commander Quinn
during one of her brief stop-ins.
"He's not doing as much as I'd hoped," she admitted. She slumped in her chair,
winding a curl of her dark hair around and around her finger. "He hasn't
reported you or Okita missing to the Station authorities. He hasn't revealed
hidden reserves of personnel. He's made no move to leave the Station. The time
he's spending maintaining his cover identity suggests he's digging in for a
long stay. Last week I'd thought he was just waiting for the return ship from
Athos that you came on, but now it's clear there's something more. Something
even more important than an AWOL subordinate."
Ethan paced, his voice rising. "How long am I going to have to stay in here?"
She shrugged. "Until something breaks, I suppose." She smiled sourly.
"Something might, although not for our side. Millisor and Rau and Setti have
been searching the Station themselves, real quiet-like - they keep coming back
to this one corridor near
Ecobranch. I couldn't figure out why, at first. Now, Okita's clothes scanned
clean of bugs, but just to be sure I mailed 'em off to
Admiral Naismith. So I knew it couldn't be that. I finally got hold of the
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technical specs for that section. The damned protein-
culture vats are behind that corridor wall. I think Okita may have had some
sort of inorganic code-response-only tracer implanted internally. Some poor
sod is going to break a tooth on it in his Chicken Kiev any day now. I just
hope to the gods it won't be a transient who will sue the Station... So much
for the perfect crime." She heaved a sigh. "Millisor hasn't figured it out
yet, though -
he's still eating meat."
Ethan was getting mortally tired of salads himself. And of this room, and of
the tension, indecision, and helplessness. And of
Commander Quinn, and the casual way she ordered him around....
"I have only your say-so that the Station authorities can't help me," he broke
out suddenly. "/ didn't shoot Okita. I haven't done anything! I don't even
have an argument with Millisor - it's you who seem to be carrying on a private
war with him. He'd never have thought I was a secret agent in the first place
if Rau hadn't found your bug. It's you who's been getting me in deeper and
deeper, to serve your spying."
"He'd have picked you up in any case," she observed.
"Yes, but all I needed was to convince Millisor that Athos didn't have his
stuff. His interrogation might have done that, if your interference hadn't
aroused his suspicions. Hell, he'd be welcome to come inspect our Rep Centers
if he wants."
She raised her eyebrows, a gesture Ethan found increasingly irritating. "You
really think you could negotiate that with him?
Personally, I'd rather import a new plague bacillus."
"At least he's male," Ethan snapped.
She laughed; Ethan's temper rose to the boiling point. "How long are you going
to keep me locked up in here?" he demanded again.
She paused, visibly. Her eyes widened, narrowed; she tamped out her smile.
"You're not locked up," she pointed out mildly.
"You can leave any time. At your own risk, of course. I shall be saddened, but
I shall survive."
He slowed in his frenetic pacing. "You're bluffing. You can't let me go. I've
learned too much."
Her feet came down from the desktop, and she stopped twisting her hair. She
stared at him with a discomforting expressionlessness, like someone
calculating the narrowness of slide necessary to prepare a biological specimen
for slide mounting. When she spoke again, her voice grated like gravel. "I
should say you haven't learned bloody enough."
"You don't want me to tell the Station authorities about Okita, do you? That
puts your neck on the line with your own people -
"
"Oh, hardly my neck. They would of course have a shit fit if they found out
what we did with the body - to which I might point out you were a willing
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